Human-Robot-Environment Design is a proposed discipline for one concrete problem: service robots are operating in hotels, hospitals, restaurants and warehouses, in spaces designed exclusively for humans. That distance is a problem of the built environment — and it is decided at the interior-design stage.
A robot is not a human with another shape. It has a different turning radius, a different working height, and a completely different relationship with light, noise, floor texture and corridor width. When it operates in a corridor drawn only for people, it does not fail outright — it runs at a fraction of what it could do. As robots improve, the space does not matter less. It becomes the limiting factor.
The decisions that make a space robot-ready — floor material, corridor width, where the hub sits, how the light is distributed, what kind of doors — are taken during interior design, where they cost practically nothing. After the walls are up and the floor is laid, changing them costs tens of thousands of euros. That is where HRED has the highest possible return: not in more expensive technology, but in a better-informed drawing.
For operators, architects, interior studios and integrators. Independent of any manufacturer — the principles do not change when the catalogue does.
At the start of a project: which task families (transport, cleaning, assistance…) the operation will plausibly need, in which zones, at what peak — and what that means for the plan before a single wall is drawn. The cheapest moment to be right.
For existing spaces: a structured evaluation of a building's automation potential — corridors, floors, doors, lifts, network, lighting, a candidate hub — and a prioritised plan of interventions. Independent of any works and of any robot vendor.
Inside a design project: materials, dimensions, infrastructure and detailing specified so that a fleet can be introduced later without construction. Delivered as a specification sheet the contractor and the integrator can both read.
Checking a design against HRED parameters before it is built: turning radii, clearances, sightlines, charging positions, cleaning coverage — in the model, where correction is free.
HRED adequacy is a function of what the robots have to do, where, in which physical envelope, and at what pace. The framework organises those questions so that no one of them is answered in isolation.
T1 transport · T2 surface maintenance · T3 manipulation · T4 inspection · T5 human assistance · T6 materials · T7 environmental · T8 security · T9 exceptions. Classifying by task, not by robot, is what keeps the framework valid when next year's catalogue arrives.
Restaurants · Hotels · Healthcare and senior care · Offices · Retail and indoor logistics · Residential · Airports and transport · Spa and wellness · Education · Arenas and stadiums · Mixed-use · Emerging and prospective. Each with its own specification sheet.
Where there is no established science, HRED declares the gap instead of filling it with fabricated content. The discipline of separating what is known from what is proposed is the spine of the work.
Forty-two chapters and seven working appendices: a proposed discipline, a built vocabulary, twelve specified typologies, a design method and a research programme with its own conditions of refutation declared. A glossary, an index of standards, a book of construction details, a workbook, specification sheets for every typology, three projects worked end to end — including what went wrong — and a standard technical data sheet to demand from manufacturers.
Much of it is proposal rather than result, and the book says, line by line, which is which. Written in Portuguese; an English edition is planned.
Either way, the first conversation is the same: what has to move, where, and how often.
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